Editor’s note: Chantal Allam, who is a free-lance writer contributing to WRAL TechWire, will be going to Supercon in Raleigh this weekend. TechWire asked her check out the event and its pop culture connections such as the video game rage know as Fortnite from Cary-based Epic Games. Chantal writes how she tries to bridge the generational divide one Fortnite session at a time. Be on the lookout for reports from Chantal over the weekend.

CHAPEL HILL – The other night, I had my 8-year-old son give me a brief tutorial on the video game Fortnite. I had to see what all the fuss was about.

Up until a few months ago, whenever I overheard someone in passing mention “Fornite,” I actually thought they were referring to something that happened two weeks ago, not the video game that seems to have taken over the public’s imagination.

A character with accessories in Fortnite

OK, I’ve been living under a rock for the last year. Forgive me. I’m a mother-of-two Gen Xer who grew up with Viewtron and Pac-Man, still listens to the Smiths and 10,000 Maniacs, and reminisces about a bygone era when you could make crank calls without being traced. (Yes, that was fun when I was a kid.)

For me, the real Wonder Woman will always be Lynda Carter, not Gal Gadot.

That’s not to say that I hadn’t recently noticed pop culture references to Fortnite in unexpected places. It seems on every corner, you can find packs of scrawny preteens doing the “floss dance” in unison. And World Cup soccer players celebrating goals with “Take the L” on the field. I mean, really, how does that look cool? But I digress.

My point is: I had never made the connection where it was all coming from — until my son finally looked up at me one day dumbfounded and asked, “You don’t know what Fortnite is? It’s based out of Cary.”

Um, now I feel old and stupid.

Like being thrown an impulse grenade, it hit me that I needed to be doing a better job at keeping up with the times — and especially my son. Sure, I’d love it if he didn’t love video games so much, and it wasn’t such a struggle to keep him off devices. But I hope I’m not alone in saying this, let’s be real, it’s real hard.

My kids are at the tail end of Generation Z. The first generation to be raised in the era of smartphones, who will never know a time before social media, or what it’s like not to have a digital footprint.

Ultimately, if I didn’t want this generational divide to deepen even more, I had to find a way to meet him where he was at and engage him there.

Chantal Allams son focuses in on “Fortnite.”

Also, let’s get goopy for a moment: the antidote to getting old is staying curious. Just because I’m not the most recent generation to be blessed on this earth, it doesn’t preclude me from being in the know of all things “lit”. (Apparently that means cool these days.)

Enter Supercon – the three-day festival celebrating comic books, anime, video games, cosplay, sci-fi and pop culture, set to descend upon the Raleigh Convention Center this weekend.

From Q&As with celebrities to wrestling and costume contests, this convention covers the gamut of trends and art forms over the last 50 years. It also offers me a rare chance to come up to speed things of interest to a preteen boy.

When the doors open on Saturday morning, I’ll be there with my son in tow.

On top of our hit list: getting an autograph from “Guardians of the Galaxy’s stars Dave Bautista (Drax) and Pom Klementieff (Mantis), taking a seminar on how to start a YouTube channel and listening to wrestling stars from FSCW talk about their experiences on the road.

Of course, I can’t promise we won’t take a few detours along the way. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give him the chance to watch a comedy sketch on ‘90s television shows – or meet Henry Winkler, aka “Arthur ‘Fonzie’ Fonzarell” from 1970s sitcom “Happy Days”.

I mean, it doesn’t get much cooler than that, right?